Friday, April 30, 2010

Once again, the Daily Show gets to synthesize politics into a punchline, and this time it's from across the pond. Hence, Clustershag to 10 Downing St. This clip from last night's show marks, first, the remarkable tameness of the British election campaign, but then, with devastating effect, shows the Gordon Brown implosion of this week ... with special effects and laughs.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

I figure I had a radio glued to my ear through much of the Seventies; just a note or two of a tune these days will trigger the memory machine. It's nice, though, to hear stuff shuffled up a bit, like Neil Nathan's cover of ELO's Do Ya.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Every now and again, my handy dandy Macbook has a fit. It rarely crashes, but instead goes into that dazed-and-confused state featuring the symbol that Mac lovers know as the beachball (sometimes known as the beachball of death).

The beachball is a spinning circle of multiple hues, and for me, it’s Apple’s way of getting around its famous claim that its computers don’t crash. Instead, the beachball just spins … and spins … and spins…

Turns out Apple boss Steve Jobs knows where to point the finger: right at one of the most popular things on the web, Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash.

The blog is quite upfront in noting its information is second-hand, but it jibes with other accounts, which all have Jobs making one knock after another against Flash. One of the more generous comments? Jobs called Flash “buggy.”

The comments did not seem at all surprising, though, because anyone with an iPhone or a related product knows one thing for sure: it won’t support Flash.

Many of you might be wondering at this point, well, so what? Why should I care?

The thing is, Flash really is a remarkable thing. YouTube wouldn’t be able to work without it. A bazillion online games depend on its simple way of handling online animation. I doubt it’s possible to count the websites that have, in one way or another, incorporated Flash somehow in what you see.

The other thing is, Flash is really showing its teeth. It dates back the better part of 15 years, and even its ardent admirers would have to admit that Flash was not designed to do what is now being asked of it.

Yes, Flash has been an earnest, tough, hard-working soldier, but in the beginning, no one expected that a Flash product would (for instance) be used to handle full-motion, high-quality video.

Flash’s shortcomings are most noticeable right now in the mobile world, and not just because iPhones have built a moat around it. Simply put, Flash products don’t work on the fly.

That’s expected to change, though, and you have to give some credit to owner Adobe for not giving in without a fight. Later this year, some smartphones (notably Androids and Palm’s Pre) will have a Flash player called 10.1, which will allow users to enjoy Flash products as if they were at a PC. Adobe says 19 out of the top 20 smartphone manufacturers have stepped up to support the product. (If you spotted Apple as the holdout, you’re right.)

But a new version doesn’t guarantee Flash is good for the future. Many of the web cognoscenti are more enthusiastic about HTML5, which its creators hope will open the gates for all kinds of products, and free users from proprietary systems … like Adobe’s Flash (and, for that matter, Microsoft’s competing Silverlight).

Sure, Apple has given it its blessings, but for me the more interesting early adopter is none other than YouTube, which has been trying HTML5 out for some time … and probably for loads of reasons other than the fact competing video purveyors have already been flocking to the language, which is far from even being completed.

If you have a smartphone, you may be used to the little blocks or spaces that pop up when you ought to be seeing, say, an animation or a video. Soon, those hiccups will be history.

The question, as the world shifts toward a web that flows through mobile devices, is whether Flash will still be in the pan.

I've been hemming and hawing on buying an iPad; well, not the question of getting it, really, but when. Part of me wants it, to be frank, now. The other part is willing to wait until things (multitasking, etc.) get fixed, or a new OS gets added, or ... well, so it goes.

And then I see something this: an exceptionally clever holder for the iPad from Temple, which is channelling some kind of Indiana Jones flavour for a decidedly un-retro gadget ... and my order finger gets itchy.

The Sunday Times in London has an interesting piece today on the super-rich ... whose numbers have been curiously climbing, despite the wreckage in the global economy. A taste:

The speed and scope of the turnround in rich fortunes has been remarkable.
Take our No 1, Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon. A year ago, the share price
for his ArcelorMittal operation was languishing and his fortune was £10.8
billion. The shares have recovered sharply and he is now at £22.45 billion,
more than double.

It is the same for the other richest of the rich. Last year we could muster
just 43 billionaires. This year it is 53. The wealthiest are also commanding
a bigger share of the cake: last year our top 100 were worth just over £131
billion, or 50.8% of the total fortune of the Rich List 1,000. This year,
the 100 are worth £182.8 billion, nearly 54.5% of the total.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Hubble telescope is 20 years old ... so to speak. Nice coverage on this BBC page; click below for a This Week @ NASA video which also includes a nod. (My appreciation for the Hubble was pretty significant, but it got a boost when I took in some exhibits at the amazing Air and Space Museum.)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The St. John's folk trio The Once have a thing for Leonard Cohen, recording not one but two Cohen songs for their debut record. Here's a live rendition of one of them, Coming Back to You, shot last year. (The other tune, incidentally, is Anthem.)

Meanwhile, some CBC folks in Toronto have been puzzling over the word, too. Sarah Liss put the question to Bernie McNamee, the voice of The World This Hour, who confirms that announcers have been avoiding saying Eyjafjallajökull out loud, for some reason.

I celebrated Record Store Day this past weekend by picking up a couple of CDs at Fred's (and taking in the Juno concert-in-the-store bit, too). Among the purchases, I finally got around to picking up the Pathological Lovers CD, Calling All Favours, which has been on my "you know, I should really buy that" list for some time. If you're not in St. John's, your chances of coming across them are reduced, but the album is worth searching out. It's great driving music. Up-and-coming director Jordan Canning made this clip for Best Served ... a little creepy, a lotta fun.

My Instagram feed

Why Dot Dot Dot?

That is, where did this blog get its name?

Dot Dot Dot is Morse code for the letter 'S,' the full message Guglielmo Marconi claimed to have received atop Signal Hill in St. John's in 1901. It ushered in the age of telecommunications. My maternal grandfather worked as a telegraph operator for Canadian Marconi on Signal Hill for many years.
As well, I have a habit of overusing the ellipsis when I write ... as frequent readers might notice.